for the inquisitive mind; and he who refuses to examine them, must lose a rich harvest of intellectual pleasure.

There is a fourth class of desires which we call moral, or perhaps they may more properly be termed immortal desires. Now we ask what provision is made for their gratification?

The world has aliment for the animal desires; all nature is ransacked to administer to their indulgence. Even the laws of God are trampled upon in order to "sow to the flesh." The pampered appetite, like a spoiled child, is asked what new variety can now be furnished to suit its capricious longings.

The world has also cultivated the social affections, and made a liberal provision for their gratification. What ceaseless rounds of amusement! What crowded assemblies! What exciting collision of wit and repartee! How has the human invention been tasked to produce new forms of social intercourse by which men of varying tastes may mingle with some hope of reciprocal pleasure!

Nor have men been neglectful of the intellect. In every department of taste and of learning, multitudes are found whose pleasures rise above those just named; for we hold that next to the moral affections, the improvement of the intellect is the purest source of human felicity.

But one class of desires still remains-the moral or immortal desires; and we again ask, has the world made any provision for them? No man but an atheist will deny to us the possession of such desires; nor can any with reason deny, that they are the most important, if not the most importunate, of our wants. The highest glory of man is not that he is an animal; and therefore his highest pleasure cannot lie in the gratification of the senses. Nor is it his highest dignity that he is a social being;—even the brute creation are, in a sense, assimilated to him in this respect ;-nor even that he has an intellect capable of enjoying the pursuits of science. No, his highest dignity and glory consist in his moral nature; and his most important wants are those which respect immor

tality. And yet it is a melancholy fact, that no provision is made by the world for this class of desires; but, on the contrary, every expedient is adopted to thwart and to suppress them. Here is certainly a great deficiency. One part of our nature, and that confessedly the most important, is, in the general provision of the world for human happiness, entirely overlooked and neglected. No wonder man is not happy in the indulgence of his passions— that even social bliss meets not his large desires and intellectual pursuits still leave him craving after something else. It is the voice of nature, complaining that her noblest aspirations are unheeded; and taking retribution for the neglect by withholding that satisfaction which the sinner is striving in vain to secure. Ye men of the world, ye sons and daughters of pleasure, look at this deficiency in your arrangements, and know that until it is supplied you cannot be at peace. Now the Christian has this advantage over you, that whilst piety permits him to enjoy all the pleasures of sense,

that are lawful, and social felicity, and intellectual pursuits; and enhances even these sources of good to man-she also gives him the bread of life for the soul. The immortal desires, more than all others, she meets with the requisite aliment. Is this no advantage; and are these joys of the spirit no increase in the general average of human felicity? Ah, in the language of Cowper, Christians can say ;

"From Thee is all that soothes the life of man;
His high endeavor, and his glad success,
His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.
But O, Thou bounteous Giver of all good,
Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown!
Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away."

CHAPTER IV.
IV.

THE JOY OF TRUE PIETY.

ENOUGH has been said, we trust, to rescue true piety from the aspersion so often cast upon it, that it produces gloom and despondency. We hope that none of our readers will again indulge such a thought; but if they discover in the countenance or conduct of its professors any thing of this nature, they will refer it to the influence of something else besides piety. It may be the individual temperament, which, by nature sad, is gradually assuming, under the influence of religion, a more cheerful tone; or it may arise from some passing cloud which has temporarily overshadowed the believer's mind; or, what is not uncommon, it may be a pensive and sorrowful feeling, in view of the folly and madness of the careless, unthinking sinner. Impenitent reader, the gloom which you charge upon religion, is often the outward